


Snakemate

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Humor, Child Abuse, Gen, M/M, Possession, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: In which Harry’s soulmate is a snake with delusions of personhood and Voldemort’s soulmate is jealous of Nagini.





	Snakemate

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt by an anon over on my tumblr.

The walk back to Privet Drive was cold and lonely. Harry shivered as he walked, caught between wanting to hurry in order to get out of the cold and wanting to go as slowly as he possibly could. Maybe if he dragged his feet, he’d just never arrive at Privet Drive. He’d just walk forever out in the cold, until the sunlight faded and he couldn’t see anything in front of him. As he turned right onto his street, Harry considered turning left instead. He thought about running away a lot—anyone who lived with the Dursleys would, he knew—but even at eight years old, Harry was well aware that there wasn’t anywhere he could go. Living on the streets wouldn’t be any better than the Dursleys. It could even be worse, although Harry found it hard to imagine something worse.

Harry grimaced as he walked up to the front door. It was locked, so he had to press the doorbell. Neither he nor Dudley had a set of keys to their home: Dudley because he kept losing them, Harry because his aunt and uncle didn’t trust him not to burn the place down or do anything freakish. Morosely, Harry thought they were probably right. Harry couldn’t seem to avoid doing freakish things.

The door opened and his aunt pulled him in by the shoulder, saying, “Get in before the neighbors see you. It’s bad enough that rumors have already started around the neighborhood. Mrs. Smith’s son is in the grade above you and I heard it from her before I even got the call from the principal.”

“It wasn’t me,” Harry protested to no success. He didn’t know why odd things happened around him, but he never actually meant for them to happen.

“It was someone else who turned Mrs. Patin’s hair blue?” his aunt asked, her hand digging hard into his shoulder. “Really, tell me who.”

“Ow, I don’t know!” Harry cried.

“If you don’t like your teacher, you deal with it. You do not do something freakish, do you understand me?”

“I said I didn’t do it,” Harry muttered, because it wasn’t as though it would change anything. His aunt was already leading him toward his cupboard, banging the door open. Harry entered willingly, not wanting to bear Aunt Petunia’s bony arms as she pushed him inside. Harry sat down on his bed and glared down at his ratty sneakers.

“Do you understand me?” Aunt Petunia repeated herself.

Harry said the only thing that his aunt would accept. “Yes, Aunt Petunia.”

The door slammed shut and so did the lock outside the door. With a disgruntled sigh, Harry’s head hit his pillow. There wasn’t any use in hating the Dursleys, but sometimes, Harry couldn’t help himself. Three, two, one, and the door to his cupboard swung open and a mostly empty box of crackers was flung through. The box turned over in the air, causing the crackers to fall onto the bed and floor. Harry felt around for one that had fallen onto his chest and bit into it. He was starving—the thing with Mrs. Patin’s hair had happened right before lunch, and then one of the boys had blamed him for everything, and the commotion had lasted through lunch—and the crackers didn’t help much, but they were still something. After a few moments, Harry forced himself to click the dim lightbulb on and gather the crackers. The ones that had fallen on the floor went into a ‘only if he wasn’t let out tomorrow morning’ pile, while the others he placed back into the box. Later, Uncle Vernon would return from work and hear everything from Dudley and Aunt Petunia, by which time the story would be that Harry had somehow freakishly turned the hair of everyone in the entire world blue. And then it was more likely than not that Uncle Vernon would shove Harry out of his cupboard to yell at him. Harry just hoped both his aunt and uncle would have cooled down by tomorrow; he rather liked eating.

For now he turned off the light, settled face up on his bed, and closed his eyes. He focused inward so hard that it felt like he was focusing outward at something just outside himself. Outside this cupboard, outside Privet Drive, maybe even outside Britain… Outside this world, because only an alien would be weird enough to be Harry’s soulmate, Dudley sometimes said, but Harry was pretty sure that if his soulmate was an alien, he’d be alright with that. At least if his soulmate was an alien, they wouldn’t be scared off by the freakish things that happened around him. Maybe his soulmate was a freak too, in their own way.

It was Harry’s worst fear that the Dursleys were right: that his soulmate wouldn’t want anything to do with Harry because Harry was a freak. But there wasn’t anything Harry could do to change his freakishness—he’d tried so many times to just be good—and Harry had hope that his soulmate was nice. When he really concentrated, he got glimpses of something his soulmate was experiencing. Sometimes it was the call of a bird, sometimes the sensation of moving fast with his entire body, sometimes the smell of nature. His soulmate lived in an area full of the kind of natural beauty that Harry had never seen, stuck in Privet Drive as he was. It was rare, but sometimes he even got glimpses through his soulmate’s eyes. Trees so tall that they made him feel minuscule, deer running through freshly fallen snow, a creek with water so fresh that if the angle had been right, he would’ve been able to see his soulmate’s image.

Dudley didn’t believe him. No one did. You were only supposed to be able to see like that with years of meditation training, which they were only starting to be taught at school. But Harry wasn’t lying, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining it. He couldn’t make up the peaceful, wonderful things he felt and heard (and, rarely, saw) whenever he truly focused on the bond between them.

It took Harry ages to get a glimpse of the connection, but it wasn’t as though he had anything else to do with his time. Outside of his cupboard, Dudley was complaining to Aunt Petunia about something while she made dinner, but inside his head was the forest. His soulmate was on the ground again—Harry often wondered if his soulmate was very young or maybe someone who liked to study bugs or a nice hermit who lived in the woods—and the forest was so large and peaceful around them, the slowly fading sunlight shining through the leaves. Harry wished he could be there; it was the exact opposite of the cramped cupboard he was stuck in.

He fought to hold onto the connection even when he knew it would fade soon. It never lasted long enough for Harry to get lost in it, no matter how much he wanted to. If he could only be there…

Unbidden, Harry thought of the time Dudley and his gang had chased him and Harry had appeared on the school roof in the blink of an eye. Harry often tried to think of an explanation for the event, one that wasn’t the banned m-word or the usual moniker of freak. Regular wind didn’t work that way and the day hadn’t even been windy at all. Harry thought that maybe, it had been a special sort of wind that had helped him onto the roof. Heart pounding, Harry squeezed his eyes shut and wished for that special wind to come and help him again. This time, it wasn’t Dudley and his gang that Harry needed saving from, it was the whole Dursley family, who would soon enough be yelling at him, and the entirety of Privet Drive, with all the curious neighbors who peeked through their blinds but didn’t really care, and it was the school, which so easily blamed him for something Harry hadn’t consciously done.

He squeezed his eyes so hard that the few tears that developed behind them didn’t have anywhere to fall. Harry was tired, and he was hungry, and he just needed a little more of that calm forest his soulmate lived in. He wanted to walk across that meadow and swim in that creek. He wanted to finally catch a glimpse of his soulmate’s home, since his soulmate couldn’t always be outside. He just wanted somewhere where he wasn’t a freak. Harry thought and thought and—

A loud crack broke through the quiet of the cupboard. Harry was scared that he’d accidentally broken his bed, but when he blinked his eyes open, he saw the same forest he’d gotten a glimpse of through the connection. He was lying on the ground in the same position he’d been in on his bed. When Harry stretched his hands out, he could feel the prickle of grass against his skin, the feeling of wet dirt tickling the pads of his fingers.

“I’m really here,” Harry breathed. He felt lightheaded and faint, but he’d done it!

Before he could get more excited, a shape rose from next to him, long and pale. Harry yelped, scrambling up to get away from the huge snake that had crept up on him. The snake wasn’t attacking, just staring at him oddly with red eyes that gleamed against its pale white scales. Harry looked around frantically, but there wasn’t anyone else here. Just him… and the snake… which obviously spent all of its time outside and close to the ground.

“My soulmate… is a snake?” Harry whimpered, staring at it with wide eyes.

The snake paused in its slither toward Harry, its mouth opening to reveal huge fangs.

Harry swallowed. He’d thought his soulmate could be young, since the things Harry saw had been close to the ground, but not this. Uncomfortably, he said, “I don’t think that’s allowed.” He couldn’t be soulmates with a _snake_.

“I am not a snake,” the snake hissed at him.

Harry’s eyes widened even further and he wondered just how lightheaded he had to be. Maybe he was still at the Dursleys’ and feverish. That had to be it, because the other option was this being real. But at least, “A talking snake? That’s… that’s better?”

“I am the great Lord Voldemort, you foolish child,” the snake said. “How did you come upon me?”

Harry tried to move, but he was frozen with fear as the snake circled around him, flicking its tongue at one of Harry’s hands. “I just wanted to be where you are, that’s all. Um. Hello, Mr. Lord Voldemort. It’s really nice to meet you.”

The snake finished circling him, ending up in front of him, its head raised nearly to Harry’s height, supported by its powerful body. It was longer than Harry himself, and Harry was sure that if it opened its mouth, it could swallow him whole.

“I don’t smell a lie,” the snake—er, Lord Voldemort—said. “But your fear is distinct. And delicious.”

“S-sorry,” Harry said, not sure if he needed to apologize. Actually, he was convinced that he needed to run away, but he didn’t think he’d get very far. “It’s just that you’re a little scary. And pretty! You’re a very pretty snake.”

“The great Lord Voldemort is not _pretty_ ,” the snake hissed. “How is it that you are able to speak with me? Is it a spell?”

“A spell?”

“Are you descended from the Gaunts? Did Morfin manage to sire a whelp before his death?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry, mister snake, I don’t know. I’m just Harry. Harry Potter.”

The snake reared back, its red eyes glinting. “ _Potter_! Have you come to mock me? I’ll show you…”

“I’m not here to mock you! I wouldn’t do that,” Harry quickly said, raising his hands as though that would do anything against an enormous snake. “To anyone, but especially not to my soulmate.”

“Stop saying that. I’m not your soulmate,” the snake hissed, settling slightly. “I have no soulmate.”

“Maybe you’re…” Harry tried to think of a tactful way to say that maybe snakes couldn’t sense their soulmates like humans could. He didn’t find one, so instead he said, “I’ve felt our connection. I’ve been able to catch glimpses of your life, what you were hearing and touching and smelling and sometimes even seeing. I was able to follow you all the way here because of that. I wanted… I wanted to be with you. I thought that if anything, it would be better here than with the Dursleys. Except now I’m lost in a forest and you’re a snake and I… I don’t know what to do.”

“You have no idea who I am, do you,” the snake hissed, flicking its tail. It sounded oddly curious. “How is that possible?”

Harry shrugged, finally lowering his hands. “I don’t know. You’re the first talking snake I’ve ever met. Um. Are there a lot of you?”

“All snakes can speak. It’s only that there are few who can hear. Perhaps… well, perhaps we truly are _soulmates_.” It said the last word with so much disgust that Harry felt offended.

“I’m not a bad soulmate, I think,” Harry told the snake. “I’m only eight, but I know a lot. I’ve read all my school books. And I can help you hunt!”

“Hm. You can be a very helpful soulmate, can’t you,” the snake hissed, cocking its pale head. “Come. There are things you will do for me. If you succeed, I may be generous with you.”

“…alright,” Harry agreed. He didn’t trust this snake, soulmate or not, but he didn’t have very many options right now. “But I’m warning you, I might pass out. I don’t feel very good. Maybe it’s the shock.”

“It’s magical exhaustion,” the snake said.

It sounded like an explanation, but… “Magic isn’t real.”

“Potter, you are speaking to a snake.”

“…good point.” Harry focused on not passing out as he followed the snake to wherever it had decided to lead him.

It was nice here, Harry thought as they walked. Bright, open, beautiful, and even a little said, but only because Harry knew that soon enough he would have to go back to his cupboard. His soulmate couldn’t help him anymore than Harry would be able to help his soulmate; Harry didn’t think he would make a good hunter, all things considered. He was fast (he had to be in order to get away from Dudley’s gang) but mice were faster. The snake would probably find a better soulmate in a cat instead of Harry. Harry’s last thought before everything went dark was wondering if he could magic himself into a cat. Then he could live in the woods with the snake…

Consciousness crept in slowly. Harry’s eyes fluttered open and he blinked a few times.

The ceiling was wooden like his cupboard, but it was far too high above him. He pushed himself up, groaning a little as the movement caused his head to ache. Again Harry found himself in an unfamiliar place. This time, it was a small cabin, lit by the light of a small fireplace and a few candles. There was only one room. Harry was on top of someone’s bed, a table sat a few feet away, and past it was a small kitchen area. The snake was curled up on a rug in front of the fire, while at the table sat an unfamiliar man.

“You certainly took your time,” the man said, putting down the newspaper he’d been reading.

“Voldemort?” Harry asked, uncertainly. The man’s tone sounded exactly like that of the snake’s. He glanced down at the humongous snake on the carpet. “But then who are you?”

The snake turned its head toward Harry, but didn’t get up. “I am Nagini.”

“Are you a person, too?”

“I am _not_ ,” the snake hissed. “Do not be inssulting. I am the queen of ssnakes.”

“Sorry, uh, my lady?”

“Good child,” Nagini hissed in reply, then turned toward the fireplace again, dismissing Harry from the conversation.

“So you can speak it,” said the man. He was tall and old, shaggy-looking, like one of those vagabonds that Aunt Petunia always listed her nose at. “I had thought it may only be because I was in her form, but you are a parselmouth. And you are undeniably Harry Potter.”

“What’s a parselmouth?”

“A marker of greatness,” the man replied, staring at Harry with human eyes that didn’t look quite normal. In this form, the man couldn’t unhinge his jaw and eat Harry whole, but Harry thought he might try anyway. “As is the fact that you are _my_ soulmate. But we are tied by fate already once; what is once more?”

Harry shrugged. He had a feeling that Voldemort wasn’t going to give him a straight answer, but he still asked, “But why were you in Nagini when I found you? Do you like being a snake?”

Voldemort’s lips curled, his expression darkening. “I have been forced into this sorry state for seven years, possessing animals and the occasional muggle for a short time. My true body is lost to me, as is my wand. But you, Potter, you will be of service to me now that you have awoken. It is the least you can do for everything that has occurred.”

Harry shivered, wondering if he should work on calling up the magical wind again. “Are you going to possess me, too?”

“I’ve already made the attempt,” Voldemort replied, looking aggravated at the thought. “It failed. Something about our magics is incompatible—or perhaps it is this bond between us—although I was able to siphon some of your magic.”

“That’s—alright.” Better than alright, because while Harry wanted to know more about his soulmate, he didn’t want to do it in that way.

“Isn’t it,” Voldemort muttered. “It is too late tonight, but tomorrow, we will set out for the closest magical district to find someone who I can properly possess. Wearing this muggle is demeaning. I refuse to do it any longer than necessary.”

“The Dursleys will be angry if I miss school tomorrow,” Harry said, his heart in his throat.

“I assume those are the muggles who taught you so little about the world you belong to?”

Harry nodded.

Voldemort gave him a considering look. “You will come with me whether you like it or not. If after our task is complete, you wish to return to your family, I will deposit you on their doorstep myself. If you do not… I will deposit you with a family who will raise you properly.”

Harry didn’t like the first option, but the second wasn’t much better. What if the family Voldemort chose for him didn’t want him either? What if they were the Dursleys, just with magic? “I don’t need raising. Can’t I stay with you? You’re my soulmate.”

“Again with the soulmate business,” Voldemort huffed. “Child, I could order Nagini to strangle you right now if I wished it. The idea of soulmates is a pretty, romanticized concept, nothing more.”

“It means we’re made for each other,” Harry replied, stubborn to the end.

“You’re too young to be a romantic.” Voldemort pinched the tip of the candle next to him, the light flickering out. “Go to sleep, Potter. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Harry sighed. That hadn’t been a no to Harry staying with him, not exactly, but it hadn’t been a yes. He wondered how old Voldemort had to be, to be so uninterested in soulmates completely. He’d never met anyone who wasn’t at least a little curious. Even Harry was curious, more so now than ever before. His soulmate was just so strange.

But if Harry couldn’t get what he really wanted… “Could you call me Harry, at least?”

“Will you go to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will consider it,” Voldemort replied.

Harry made a face at him, but Voldemort had already turned away. In truth, Harry didn’t know if he could complete his end of the bargain either; it felt as though he’d already slept a whole week. Still, he tried, resting his head on the scratchy pillow and leaving his eyes half-open. Voldemort picked a book from the bookshelf and, after a glance toward Harry, sat down next to Nagini, his hand running down her pale scales.

“You will take me with you, won’t you, masster?” Nagini asked, resting her head on his thigh.

“I will,” Voldemort promised. “You have served me well, beautiful one.”

Harry’s eyes shot open. “If Nagini can stay, so should I! I’m more helpful than a snake.”

“Masster, allow me to eat him for his dissresspect,” Nagini hissed.

“No—I have plans for him.”

“Ha,” Harry hissed at her. “He has plans for me.” Belatedly, Harry remembered that he could probably stand to worry about what plans Voldemort actually had for him instead of thinking about getting one up on Nagini.

“Massterrrrr,” Nagini hissed, petulantly.

“I would _Crucio_ the both of you if I could,” Voldemort said, flicking Nagini on the head and shooting Harry a glare. “You will get along. You will do as I say. You will _obey_.”

“Yess, masster.”

Harry had a feeling a _Crucio_ was a very bad thing indeed, but so far, Voldemort’s bark had been worse than his bite. He hadn’t been mean to Harry, not really, not as horribly as the Dursleys. So with a tone of total subservience, Harry said, “Yes, soulmate.”

Voldemort gave him a very unimpressed look, but the _Crucio_ didn’t appear. Harry fell asleep watching Voldemort, who read while rhythmically stroking Nagini, and Nagini, who hissed a little even in her sleep. He didn’t know if tomorrow would be a good day, but he knew for sure it would be interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you choose to leave a comment, please respect the fact that this story is complete. 
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/) :)


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